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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357511">one more place in my memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelemonisinplay/pseuds/thelemonisinplay'>thelemonisinplay</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Current Events, Dimension Cannon, Domestic, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Pandemics, Parallel Universes, Reunions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:34:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357511</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelemonisinplay/pseuds/thelemonisinplay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When there is a knock at the door in the middle of her day off in the midst of a global pandemic, Martha naturally presumes it’s a delivery she’s forgotten about ordering. That or Mickey’s forgotten his keys. Something mundane, and ordinary, and expected.</p><p>It's none of the above. It's Rose Tyler, twelve years on, just popping by.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martha Jones &amp; Rose Tyler, Martha Jones/Mickey Smith, Mickey Smith &amp; Rose Tyler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>one more place in my memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i'm obsessed with the fact that mickey and rose never got a goodbye, and i'm in love with the idea of martha &amp; rose being friends. so here, some closure, years too late in the middle of a global pandemic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When there’s a knock at the door in the middle of her day off in the midst of a global pandemic, Martha naturally presumes it’s a delivery she’s forgotten about ordering. That or Mickey’s forgotten his keys. Something mundane, and ordinary, and expected.</p><p>What she is by no means expecting is for an old friend to be grinning at her from the doorway, much closer than Martha’s comfortable with, these days. Older than the last time Martha had seen her of course; if Martha had to guess she’d say it’s been roughly the same amount of time for both of them. Twelve years, give or take.</p><p>Martha steps back on instinct, wonders if she’s got a mask to hand almost at the same time as wondering why she’s being visited now, after all these years, at the worst possible time.</p><p>“Hi,” says the woman at the door, and if Martha detects a hint of uncertainty in her voice she doesn’t take note of it. She’s too busy mentally calculating the risks of the conversation. “I’m Rose, I don’t know if you remember, we met that time with Davros and –”</p><p>Martha nods. “Yeah, I remember you,” she says. Of course she remembers Rose. How could she not? Even if the Doctor hadn’t spent months on end sadly dropping her into their every conversation when they’d travelled together all those years ago; even if she’d not spent the past decade with Mickey whose entire life was tangled up with Rose’s – Martha couldn’t forget any detail of that adventure with Davros. And Rose had been sweet, and smiley, and brave, and not at all what she’d expected. And then she’d disappeared from all of their lives without so much as a goodbye.</p><p>Martha doesn’t say any of that, though. What she says is: “What are you doing visiting people? Don’t you know there’s a global pandemic?”</p><p>“A what?” says Rose with a frown. And then, “Is that why it’s so quiet? I wondered why I hadn’t seen anyone all the way here. Anyway, I’ve only been back in this universe for twenty minutes or so. No pandemics where I’m from.”</p><p>Back in this universe. <em>Back</em> in this universe.</p><p>Well. That explains why she’s not been in touch for a decade, and why she’s standing so brazenly on the doorstep, face uncovered, unworried by the distance between them.</p><p>But then what’s she doing back here?</p><p>Martha almost drags her into the house then, concern about public health erased and delighted for an opportunity to sit with somebody outside her own household, to talk to somebody without worrying about how far away they were standing or how likely it is that Martha will catch something and pass it on to thousands of patients and all the staff and have to live with the guilt of being the carrier.</p><p>Rose, Martha realises, looks completely baffled.</p><p>“Huge global pandemic. Everyone’s been at home on lockdown for the past couple of months. You’re safe in here, we’re key workers so we’ve been tested, and they all came back negative. Can’t have you contracting a major disease the second you’re back in this universe.”</p><p>She moves into the kitchen and puts the kettle on, motions for Rose to sit at the little kitchen table, pulls out some mugs.</p><p>“No, I suppose not,” agrees Rose. “Blimey, that sounds awful. How's that going?”</p><p>Martha shrugs. “I’m back working in hospitals, thought I might be most useful there. Mickey’s liaising with others who were involved with UNIT and Torchwood trying to keep aliens at bay cos we can’t really handle anything else on top of this. But you – you went back to that other universe? What for? What are you doing back?”</p><p>“Walls of the universe are thinning out again,” Rose shrugs. Martha places a cup of tea in front of her, leaves milk and sugar on the table for her to help herself to. “A Donna Noble and a Mickey Smith and a handful of others from another universe drifted into ours, all very confused. We’ve sealed that wall up, but figured we should warn you before blocking this one back off, so you can seal yourselves in again. The Doctor, my Doctor, he said you’d be the one to look for, that you’d be easiest to find and most likely to have contact with either him, the other Doctor, or with someone in UNIT who could help close it off.”</p><p>“I suppose we should get to that before we let our pandemic spread into other universes by accident,” Martha says with a nod, brain whirring with other thoughts: <em>my </em>Doctor. The <em>other </em>Doctor. Parallel world. Mickey had theorised, after Rose had never been in touch, after they’d seen the Doctor all by himself that time, but they’d never had confirmation. “I haven’t been in touch with him in years, though. UNIT’s mostly gone. I can try my New York contacts, and track down names who have been linked to him more recently, but beyond that …”</p><p>Rose nods. “Yeah, I didn’t think it would be easy. But we thought you deserved to know before things got worse.” There’s a pause. “Years?”</p><p>“He saved our life one last time, a few years back,” says Martha. “Not seen him since. We wondered if it was a goodbye, and of course all the UNIT files on him since have shown other faces, so maybe it was. We wondered why you’d not been there, why you’d never been in touch.”</p><p>Rose looks a little lost, a little sad. “On his own?” She sips her tea. “I – I would have been in touch. Or I would have at least said goodbye. But he left me and the other him, the human one, back in that other world with my mum. Just disappeared when we weren’t looking, didn’t even say goodbye.”</p><p>“He <em>what</em>?”</p><p>Rose just shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”</p><p>They sit in silence for a moment, sipping at their teas. Martha racks her brains for contacts who might be able to get in touch with the Doctor, pushing down that outrage bubbling up at the idea of him making huge, life-altering decisions on behalf of other people. She can be furious with him after they’ve found him and solved this.</p><p>“Did you say you were still in touch with Mickey?” Rose asks, suddenly, smile sneaking back up on her face as she looks right at Martha.</p><p>Martha smiles, a big, soft smile. Rose doesn’t know. Of course she doesn’t, how would she? Martha puts her mug down on the table and waves her wedding ring at Rose, whose grin expands across her whole face.</p><p>“You got married?” Rose squeals. “When? Congratulations! Oh my god! Where is he?”</p><p>“He’s taken our son to the supermarket,” says Martha, and she’s still got that soft smile on her face, suddenly impossibly grateful for her little family as she’s watching someone else come to terms with the fact that it exists. “They should be back in an hour or so, depending how long the queue is outside.”</p><p>“You have a <em>son</em>?”</p><p>Rose has jumped up to give Martha a hug, and it’s more affection than Martha’s had from anyone outside of her household in months. It’s soft, and tight, and warm, and the shock of physical contact makes her almost want to cry.</p><p>“His name is August. He’s four,” says Martha. “How about you and your Doctor?”</p><p>“No,” says Rose, who’s looking a little teary herself after that hug. “I can’t believe I’ve <em>missed</em> all this.” She checks the time, then. “I’ve got about two hours left before my time here is up and I have to go back. Do I have time to see them before I go? Or maybe we should focus on fixing the universe?”</p><p>--</p><p>Martha makes a couple of calls to whoever’s left of UNIT in the UK, to her remaining contacts in New York and the EU, to Gwen up in Wales. Just in case any of them have any ideas. And then Luke Smith, well into his twenties by now, wishing with a pang that she’d been able to get hold of Sarah Jane – Luke is the only other person she can think might have contact with the Doctor. Donna, of course, is completely out of the question these days, and neither she nor Gwen has heard from Jack since that whole thing years back where everybody had stopped dying.</p><p>Rose, meanwhile, sits in the kitchen quietly with her, occasionally patching through to someone called Control to let them know how things are going.</p><p>“Sarah Jane died?” she says eventually once Martha gets off the phone. She’s curled into the chair, cross-legged, hair pulled to one side in a lazy, loose plait while she’d been waiting. She looks very young suddenly, young and sad and tired. Exactly how Martha feels most of the time, these days.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Martha softly. “A little while ago. We all went to the funeral.”</p><p>And then, before either of them can say anything more, the door slams open and a small boy dashes into the kitchen to wash his hands before removing his mask or hugging anybody. Mickey follows swiftly, and Martha doesn’t have time to warn him, or to warn Rose, and instead watches both of them stare at each other, surprise and awe and then joy bubbling up inside them both. Rose jumps up and near leaps upon him, which he deflects until he's washed his hands.</p><p>“Long time no see,” says Mickey once he's permitted her to wrap herself around him. August has climbed onto Martha’s lap and is looking at Rose with suspicion.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t really get much choice in it,” says Rose, releasing Mickey. “I missed you. So much. And –” she spots August suddenly, and grins if possible even wider “- oh, hi! You must be August! I’m Rose.”</p><p>August doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to cling to Martha. Rose doesn’t seem to be offended, just smiles at him, sits back down across from him with her tea.</p><p>“I shouldn’t have missed this,” she says, wistfully. “I wouldn’t have, if it had been up to me. But I’ve only got, ooh, bit over an hour left before the Dimension Cannon shuts off, and I’ve got to go back.”</p><p>“You’re happy though, right?” Mickey asks. He’s sat down too now, between them.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Rose. “I’ve got the Doctor, and my mum, and Pete and Tony. Everything I never thought I could have. But I’ve <em>missed</em> you.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Mickey. They chat, the three of them, fill each other in on their lives and share stories, whilst Mickey stands up to prepare a small dinner for August. Rose can’t seem to take her eyes off him, their beautiful boy, who’s moved off to sit on the floor and play with his toy stethoscope.</p><p>“I can’t believe he dumped you on a parallel universe,” says Mickey, slotting some bread into the toaster. “After all you did for him. All those times you pushed to get back to him.”</p><p>“Mickey,” says Martha sharply, a warning tone, though of course she’s been thinking the same thing. All those months of the Doctor sadly dragging Rose up into conversation when they were together, all the grief she listened to for months, and then as soon as she’s back with him he just abandons her with another man?</p><p>“It’s fine,” Rose says, “it’s been a long time. I used up my anger at him years ago. And I’m happy now, I am. I’ve got the Doctor,<em> a</em> Doctor, and my family, and we’ve got a TARDIS. And I’m not leaving them now.”</p><p>“I missed you,” says Mickey, eventually, putting a plate at the table and wrangling their son into sitting in front of it.</p><p>“He really did,” confirms Martha.</p><p>“<em>I</em> didn’t miss you,” says August, who’s sat across from Mickey, between Rose and Martha, a forkful of beans halfway to his mouth.</p><p>Rose grins. “Well, I missed <em>you</em>, even though I didn’t know you,” she says to him, softly and warmly, staring at him like she never wants to let him go. And then turns to Martha and Mickey. “Are you gonna be okay, sorting it all out? We’ll seal what we can off from our end, but we can’t do anything between your world and others.”</p><p>Martha nods. “We’ll be fine. Someone will get in touch with the Doctor if nothing else.”</p><p>“Good,” says Rose. “I want to know you’re all safe. From this pandemic, too, yeah? If I’m not gonna see you after this, I at least want to know you’re okay.”</p><p>“We’ll be fine,” says Mickey. “But you keep an eye out for diseases, yeah? I don’t want you getting lost to a lung problem after everything you’ve done.”</p><p>And here they are: a goodbye, twelve years too late and none of them exactly prepared for it, but when are they ever?</p><p>“How long have you got?” Martha asks.</p><p>“’Bout ten minutes,” says Rose. And then smiles to herself, looks at Mickey. “D’you remember that first time on Bad Wolf Bay, the Doctor projecting a hologram of himself in front of me to say goodbye? This feels a bit like that. I just don’t know what to say,” she says. “I’m proud of you.”</p><p>“And me,” says Mickey. “Look at you. Still saving the universes after all these years.”</p><p>Rose grins. “I’m glad I could meet you again,” she says to Martha, “you’re more than a match for this one.” And then looks at August, who still hasn’t quite warmed up to her and will never get another chance to: “and you, little man, I’m glad I met you. You make your mummy and daddy proud, yeah?”</p><p>August nods solemnly, and Martha can’t help but envision another world: she and Rose Tyler catching up over a cup of tea weekly, Rose making sure the Doctor keeps in touch with old friends, the both of them popping by to tell wild otherworldly stories and listen to wild Earth stories and help Martha and Mickey on their quest to raise a bright, brave, sweet boy full of love and respect and charm. Mickey having his best friend around, someone to share memories of their estate and their childhood and the extremely specific experience of regaining family members through a parallel world.</p><p>But it’s not going to happen. It’s been twelve years, and all of those daydreams have been and gone, and they’re lucky to have had this little drop of extra time.</p><p>Martha pulls Rose into a quick hug. “Tell the Doctor hello, won’t you?”</p><p>“Course I will,” says Rose. “And if you see him, if you see the other one, tell him - ,”</p><p>Mickey hugs her tight before she finishes the sentence.</p><p>“We’ll send your love, don’t worry,” he grins. “Good to see you, Rose. I’m glad you’re happy.”</p><p>“Me too,” says Rose, eyes bright all of a sudden. “Take care. And you, August, you look after yourself.”</p><p>And then she’s gone.</p><p>August stares at the space where she’d been, wide-eyed. “Wow,” he says. Martha smiles and kisses him on top of the head, so grateful to have him and her husband and friends in alternate universes who’ll show up to try to save your life.</p>
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